I have visitors / contractors performing works in labs and other clean areas continually. THey are informed in what they have do to comply with local requirements. If they dont, they do not do the works or even get near a controlled area - irrespective of how important it is. Has the client reported back to your company your reluctance to comply?
I have four 'favourite' H&S edicts...... 1) Bricklayers have to wear hard hats, even when laying bricks in a foundation trench.......but as they lean forward, the hats fall off. Of course chin straps aren't fitted and it is not permitted to wear the hats backwards.....they end up putting the hat back on more times than the number of bricks they lay........It's even worse when layong bricks for a manhole. 2) When working off a ladder, the ladder has to be secured by means of an eye-bolt in the wall.........So how does the ye-bolt get there in the first place? Scaffold?? 3) When dismantling a scaffold, the operative has to be securely safely harnessed to part of the scaffold above him.........???? 4) I once went onto a 3 acre green field building site in the mid-80s where the piling rig had been assembled in the middle of the field.........the only other piece of equipment and/or obstacle on the site was the agent's hut..........We were all issued with safety hats, even though we were at least twice the distance away from the rig...........and a fat lot of good a hard hat would have been if the rig had fallen on us.
It's a created and pretty much self regulated industry. So fucking irritating. I've been to sites where I have to wear a certain type of glove to walk to the turbine package then change to a more dexterity type glove when I get there. Fucking ridiculous. The only departments recruiting these days are HSE, legal and compliance. Sad but true.
I always used to ask of my ex employer why jointers working in a field with nothing above them but the clouds had to wear hard hats, yet the warehouse staff that worked all day amongst 10 meter high pallet racking were exempt.
I think we need to have a talk about your appalling attitude my man. Now go and fill some daft safety card thing and do 500 lines.
2, 3 & 4 do seem ridiculous - I have seen similar things... But, number 1 - if the hard hat falls off when doing the job, then it's the wrong hat for the job. PPE has to be fit for purpose, these hats clearly aren't... The favourite one at the moment seems to be hi-viz. It's got to the point where the thing that stands out is the person not wearing hi-viz, clearly visible against a background of flourescent yellow... A good deal of company "H&S" rules have nothing at all to do with the actual HSE or the HSW act. It's just stuff made up by officious idiots who misinterpret or deliberately misread the rules to create their own little empire.
Don't get me fukin started Mary. I've quoted this one before, but I was on a oil company's site, after they subjected me to a one day induction, then breathalised me. I was required to wear hard hat, Nomex coveralls, safety boots, protective glasses, gloves and Hi Viz at all times, the turbine was about 1/2 mile from the office I was a bucket of sweat by the time I reached the unit. Then I go into the compartment sod all lighting and the floor awash with oil, I was like the silver bloody surfer and skidded the length of the turbine compartment, God only knows how I didn't go an ma arse, or worse off the walkway and under the turbine (that would have been a "dull yin"). HSE, get a bloody mop and some solvents onto the fekin walkway ya lazy sods!!! On another I was doing flue gas analysis and the analyzer was 220V now did that kick up a stink or what. This is a 110V only site sonny, no 220 allowed, cried the HSE bod with his usual withering condescending tone reserved for half-witted contractors, as we were clearly children who did not know any better and could quite easily break a nail or summit. He was a little surprised when I took him around the other side of the turbine package and pointed to the great big blue 220V outlet on the side of it and it was live too (I had tested it when he wisnae around). I know chip on both shoulders OJ BA (bad attitude)
Whilst it is very easy to make fun of HS&E initiatives it would be a sad day to turn the clock back 50 years. @Willythepoo Learn to work within the rules first then decide which ones you are going to be flexible with; most of them are there for your protection and they are taken very seriously by management, not least because their bonuses probably depend upon your compliance.
It's no so much the rules as the tits that seem to be drawn to the discipline. Not all bad, but in my experience the kind that actually do fuck all, but excel at criticising others when the work is done! And don't start me off on how fucking lawyers are paralyzing commerce as well as bleeding it dry!
I could go on all night.... I went to a process plant in the north west England. We had to permenantly carry full BA whilst on site. Hilarious! The trouble is with these fuckwits that make it all up is it slowly becomes a monster. No one ever owns a problem or needs to find a solution. It simply gets passed around. Been in oil and gas 20 odd years and it really is getting nuts. Someone's going to have to hit the stop button soon.
I forgot to add ear defenders at all times too, the unit was shutdown and if you removed the ear defenders (which of course would have been grossly irresponsible) you could have heard a pin drop You topped trumped me Mary with the BA set, never had to do that although lost count of the number of times I had to wait all day to get a permit to go into the "confined space" that is the GT inlet. It would be the Ducati equivalent of standing on the clean side of the air filter (but a tad bigger) On yet another oil company's site I had to go into the clean side of a filter house on a running unit. This particular machine, had the old style small filter house so the airflow was at least 50mph, it was a blowing a good one inside it. I had to wear a harness (good idea) to stop me getting blown where I didn't want to go. I was a bit more dubious about the gas sniiffer test that was required prior to my entry. I also had to point out that placing the sniffer (untethered) at the inlet hatch was probably not the permit guy's brightest moment, as it was perilously close to getting ingested into the engine. I'm old school and many will not agree with my attitude and with good reason............................but my take is if you need all that shite all the time, you should not be on the fekin site in the first place as you clearly do not know what you are doing and are probably a liability to others who do. My point earlier is the PPE itself can frequently put you at greater risk not less. I fully agree with the equipment where it is required but 99% of the time its not. I always made sure when there was genuine risk I had the required kit, to the point of refusing to undertake a task if the proper procedures and equipment were not put in place.
As a visitor you represent your company, and if on official business you kick up a fuss about nowt it will get back to your company. I have done it a few times. Ie "Dont send that plant pot bloke back - he is pain in the butt and creates more problems than he solves". Bad feedback is not welcome.
I'm guessing that when the OP said "visiting" what he actually meant was "being employed as a sub-contractor" or maybe "carrying out checks/inspections". I think I'm correct in saying visitors, in that sense, have to follow the same rules as the company who own the site...
